SINGAPORE – Watching the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens – where American swimmer Michael Phelps won six gold and two bronze medals – inspired Mr David Ong to swim more regularly to keep fit.
However, his new swimming regimen, which he described as “vigorous”, soon led to pain in his chest, which he initially dismissed as muscular strain.
The pain persisted for a few weeks and he visited a doctor, where an X-ray found three fractured ribs.
Subsequent checks, which included a battery of blood tests as well as radiological investigations, uncovered that Mr Ong – then a 44-year-old pastor with the Faith Community Baptist Church – had stage 3 multiple myeloma, a rare bone marrow cancer.
Its symptoms include bones that are easily fractured, as well as pain in the ribs and backbone.
Having previously served as a staff nurse at a hospital here in the 1980s, Mr Ong had heard of the disease, but thought it affected only the elderly.
“I was very devastated and confused,” Mr Ong, now aged 65, told The Straits Times.
Multiple myeloma is a type of blood cancer that affects the bone marrow, characterised by excessive multiplication of plasma cells, a type of white blood cell.
It is the second-most common type of blood cancer in Singapore after lymphoma, with the country seeing some 120 new patients diagnosed each year.
It typically affects older men, with 65 being the average age when a multiple myeloma patient here is diagnosed.
Among those with the condition is property tycoon Ong Beng Seng, 79, who – after being found guilty of abetting the obstruction of justice in August – was
sentenced to a $30,000 fine,
as the judge noted that his cancer meant a prison term would carry a “high and increased risk of endangering his life”.
While bone marrow cancers have been linked to exposure to factors such as radiation or toxic chemicals, most patients – Mr David Ong included – do not have any obvious risk factors.
“I would say the majority of blood cancers are random occurrences,” said haematologist William Hwang, describing them as “no-fault diseases”.
“It’s just one of those things that happen.”
When Mr Ong was diagnosed, the average life expectancy of multiple myeloma patients was four years, even with treatment.
Confronted with his own mortality, Mr Ong recalled that he began experiencing a “deep sense of grief and anxiety about the future”, worrying about everything from his own health to his family’s finances.
“Even though I’m a pastor, I’m a man, and men do cry,” he said.
However, he persevered because of a desire to see his only child, Joshua, then aged four, grow up and have his own children.
